Family: Protect us from Richard Laws

Convicted sex offender Richard Laws, who was recently released after serving a 23-year prison term, speaks after pleading not guilty in Vermont Superior Court in St. Albans to a charge of driving with a suspended license.
GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS

The former girlfriend of Richard J. Laws, 49, and the couple's daughter have filed court papers asking a judge to keep the newly released convicted sex offender away from them.

News about the relief-from-abuse orders surfaced Monday as Laws appeared in Vermont Superior Court in St. Albans following his weekend arrest on an allegation of driving with a suspended license.

Following the hearing, Laws told reporters that he poses no threat.

"I am not a danger to anyone," Laws said.

Laws, a transient, maintains that a friend, Dianne Gallup, 58, was driving a car Saturday afternoon but did not feel well and began to drive in both lanes, court records show. He then got behind the wheel.

Laws, who last week completed his maximum 23-year prison sentence on charges of sexual assault, kidnapping and assault said Monday he was willing to settle the driving case, but a state prosecutor wanted him to go back to prison.

Laws said he was driving but could not agree to return to custody.

"I'm guilty. I was behind the wheel," he told reporters during a 12-minute interview outside the courthouse.

Judge Alison Arms said Laws needed to obtain a lawyer and return to court May 1. She released Laws on conditions, including that he not drive without a valid license.

While in prison, Laws was not compliant with sex offender treatment and is considered "high risk," officials have said. Police agencies have warned Vermonters about him.

An Addison County woman stated in court papers that she is an ex-girlfriend of Laws and the mother of a child he fathered, court papers show. The daughter was born in 1992, almost four months after Laws was arrested for one of the most serious rape and beating cases in Vermont.

Laws' daughter stated that she received a call from Gallup indicating that Laws "really misses you and loves you and wants to be part of your life," the daughter wrote in court papers.

The woman said she has never had contact with her father and has no idea how her phone number was uncovered.

The daughter said she later received a call from the prison in Newport indicating Laws wanted to add her to the list of people he would be able to telephone.

"I told them I didn't know him and didn't give him my number. They had no knowledge how he got it," she wrote. "He's never had any involvement in my life. His sudden interest in me makes me nervous."

The mother fears Laws might turn his attention to her because a court has ordered him to stay away from the woman he attacked in Waitsfield in 1992, according to court papers.

A hearing regarding the abuse-relief petitions is planned for Wednesday in Vermont Superior Court in Middlebury.

Latest arrest

Vermont State Police in Franklin County said troopers received a complaint Saturday about a westbound red Toyota Corolla on Vermont 105 that appeared to be moving erratically, Trooper Ashley Farmer stated.

Farmer said she subsequently stopped the vehicle on Vermont 105 in Sheldon. Laws told her that his driver's license was under suspension. The license was suspended following a Feb. 18, 1991, DUI conviction.

Laws said he and Gallup were headed to Montpelier, got lost and ended up in the St. Johnsbury area, Farmer wrote in an affidavit. They stopped in Newport for lunch, but when they got back on the road, Gallup began to drive in both lanes, the trooper wrote. Laws and Gallup then traded places behind the wheel near Jay Peak, he said.

Laws said he called the state sex offender registry to provide a heads up. State police said nobody answers the phone after hours at the Vermont Crime Information Center, but when investigators checked, they found he had left a message, state police spokesman Scott Waterman said.

Laws, formerly of Fayston, was on probation for driving while intoxicated and possession of stolen property when he attacked a woman after a night at a Waitsfield bar 23 years ago.

The 29-year-old woman had rebuffed Laws at the Mad Mountain Tavern the night of June 19, 1992.

Investigators believe Laws punctured two tires on the victim's car that night so she was forced to pull off the road after leaving the tavern, then-State Police Detective Sgt. Jeff Cable reported.

Laws stopped and offered to provide the woman a ride, police said. He beat and raped her at the Sugarbush ski area and later left her in a remote area in Granville.

Campers found the woman the next morning when she stumbled into their campsite. She was admitted in critical condition to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. Police said at the time they believed the woman survived the attack only because she was in top physical condition.

Within three days, state police had Laws in custody. He was charged with kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault.